"Oh,--er--well, of course--you and your mother, and Jack. But he and you--"
"Better swim out before you get into deep water," advised Jack quickly, and he nudged Tom with his foot.
Then the boys had to tell about their final experiences before leaving the Lafayette Escadrille with which many trying, as well as many happy, hours were a.s.sociated, and the girls told of their adventures, which were not altogether tame.
Since Mrs. Gleason had been freed from the plotting of the spy, Potzfeldt, she had lived a happy life--that is as happy as one could amid the scenes of war and its attendant horrors. She and Bessie were throwing themselves heart and soul into the immortal work of the Red Cross, and now Nellie bad joined them.
"It"s the only way I can stop thinking about poor Harry," she said with a sigh. "Oh, if I could only hear some good news about him, that I might send it to the folks at home. Do you think it will ever come--the good news, I mean?" she asked wistfully of Tom.
"All we can do is to hope," he said. He knew better than to buoy up false hopes, for he had seen too much of the terrible side of war. In his heart he knew that there was but little chance for Harry Leroy, after the latter"s aeroplane had been shot down behind the German lines.
Yet there was that one, slender hope to which all of us cling when it seems that everything else is lost.
"He may be a prisoner, and, in that case, there is a chance," said Tom, while Jack and Bessie were conversing on the other side of the room.
"You mean a chance to escape?"
"Hardly that, though it has been done. A few aviators have got away from German prison camps. But it"s only one chance in many thousand. No, what I meant was that--well, it"s too small and slim a chance to talk about, I"m afraid."
"Oh, no!" she hastened to a.s.sure him. "Do tell me! No chance is too small. What do you mean?"
"Well, sometimes rescues have been made," went on Tom. "They are even more rare than escapes, but they have been done. I was thinking that perhaps after Jack and I get in with Pershing"s boys we might be in some big raid on the Hun lines, and then, if we could get any information as to your brother"s whereabouts, we might plan to rescue him."
"Oh, do you think you could?"
"I certainly can and will try!" exclaimed Tom, earnestly.
"Oh, will you? Oh, I can"t thank you enough!" and she clasped his hand in both hers and Tom blushed deeply.
"Please don"t count too much on it," Tom warned Nellie. "It"s a desperate chance at best, but it"s the only one I can see that we can take. First of all, though, we"ve got to get some word as to where Harry is."
"How can you do that?"
"Some of the Hun airmen are almost human, that is compared to the other Boche fighters. They may drop a cap of Harry"s or a glove, or something," and Tom told of the practice in such cases.
"Oh, if they only will!" sighed Nellie. "But it is almost too much to hope."
And so they talked until late in the evening, when the time came for Nellie, Bessie and her mother to report back for their Red Cross work.
The boys returned to their hotel, promising to write often and to see their friends at the next opportunity.
"I won"t forget!" said Tom, on parting from Nellie.
"Forget what?" asked Jack, as they were going down the street together.
"I"m going to do my best to rescue her brother," said Tom, in a low voice.
"Good! I"m with you!" declared Jack.
The stay of the two boys in Paris was all too short, but they were anxious to get back to their work. They wanted to be fighting under their own flag. Not that they had not been doing all they could for liberty, but it was different, being with their own countrymen. And so, when their leaves of absence were up, they took the train that was to drop them at the place a.s.signed, where the newly arrived Americans were beginning their training.
"The American front!" cried Tom, as he and Jack reached the headquarters of General Pershing and his a.s.sociate officers. "The American front at last!"
"And it"s the happiest day of my life that I can fight on it!" cried Jack.
CHAPTER VIII. A BATTLE IN THE AIR
Strictly speaking there was at that time no American front. That did not come until later, for the American soldiers, as was proper, were brigaded with the French and British, to enable our troops, who were unused to European war conditions, to become acquainted with the needful measures to meet and overcome the brutality of the Huns.
But even with this brigading of the United States" troops with the seasoned veterans, which, in plain language, meant a mingling of the two forces, there was much that was strictly American among the new arrivals.
Not only were the khaki-clad soldiers real Americans to the backbone, but their equipment and the supplies that had come over with them in the transports were such as might be seen at any army camp in this country, as distinguished from a French or a British camp.
"Well, the boys are here all right," remarked Jack, as he and Tom made their way toward the headquarters at which they were to report.
"Yes, and it makes me feel good to see them!" said Tom. "This is the beginning of the end of Kaiserism, if I"m any judge."
"Oh, it isn"t going to be so easy as all that," returned Jack. "We"ll see some hard fighting. Germany isn"t licked yet by any means; but those, are the boys that can bring the thing to a finish," and he pointed to a company of the lean, stem, brown figures that were swinging along with characteristic stride.
The place at which Tom and Jack had been ordered to report was an interior city of France, not far from the port at which the first transport from America had arrived. A first glance at the scenes on every hand would have given a person not familiar with war a belief that hopeless confusion existed. Wagons, carts, mule teams and motor trucks-"lorries," the English call them--were dashing to and fro. Men were marching, countermarching, unloading some vehicles, loading others.
Soldiers were being marched into the interior to be billeted, others were being directed to their respective French or English units.
Officers were shouting commands, and privates were carrying them out to the best of their ability.
But though it all seemed chaos, out of it order was coming. There was a system, though a civilian would not have understood it.
"Well, let"s find out where we"re at," suggested Torn, to his chum.
"Right O, my pickled grapefruit!" agreed Jack with a laugh. "Let"s get into the game."
They were about to ask their direction from a non-commissioned officer who was directing a squad of men in the unloading of a truck which seemed filled with canned goods, when some one said:
"There goes Black Jack now!"
The two air service boys looked, and saw, pa.s.sing along not far away, a tall man, faultlessly attired, who looked "every inch a soldier," and whose square jaw was indicative of his fighting qualities, if the rest of his face had not been.
"Is that General Pershing?" asked Tom, in a low voice of the non-commissioned officer.
"That"s who he is, buddy," was the smiling answer. "The best man in the world for the job, too. Come on there now, you with the red hair. This isn"t a croquet game. Lay into those cases, and get "em off some time before New Year"s. We want to have our Christmas dinner in Berlin, remember!"
"So that"s Pershing," commented Jack, as he looked at the American commander, who, with his staff officers, was on a trip of inspection.
"Well, he suits me all right!"
"The next thing for us to do is to find out if we suit him," remarked Tom. "Wonder if he knows we"re here?"
"I don"t even believe he knows we"re alive!" exclaimed Jack, for the moment taking Tom"s joke quite seriously.